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This book is about how to run services, in any organisation, in any industry. It describes the basics, the core stuff, in realistic pragmatic terms. And it is pragmatically brief - we kept it to 50 paperback pages.

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the end of ITIL V2 annnounced by OGC

ITIL V2 will be all over by 30th June, 2011. No books printed, no certifications offered.

The end will begin on 30th June 2010 with dropping of the V2 Foundation "product", as OGC so tellingly refers to it.

Other V2 certifications will be progressively dropped up until 30th June, 2011 when it is all over Rover.

Reading between the lines it sounds like not all countries will get replacement to translated V2 Practitioner exams: "it may not be relevant to produce all intermediate exams in all language variants"

And the books? Service Support and Service Delivery and all other publications "will be removed on 30 June 2011, though in the later period these may only be available as ‘print on demand’ or in electronic formats." So it is not that they will stop printing on 30th June - they will remove them from sale. Even if you want it you can't buy it. Perverse no? I can understand dropping the certification to make selling ITIL courses more profitable, which is after all what it is all about for OGC/APMG, but to stop selling a digital product which has no printing costs is pure silliness. Actually, to stop printing books if people still want to buy them is also sensationally silly but there you go.

I de-installed Vista and rolled back to XP. I refuse to use Win7 or in fact to further enrich Microsft at all if I can help it (though they've got me where I may have to). Ubuntu is looking better every time MS shaft the market.

In software the world is slowly and painfully learning the lesson that new does not necessarily mean better: it might mean bloated and slow with more bugs. Some folk think the "bloated" criticism might well apply to V3.

ITIL V3 will only displace ITIL v2 if it offers more business value. Apparently it doesn't for everyone. (...or if OGC do it forceably, as they intend. Even MS are supporting XP until 2013 and Vista until who knows when).

At the risk of being seen as short sighted............what is the reason we still speak about ITIL V2 and V3.........?

I think it's because of the certification offer and thus the training offer. V2 is percieved (and not without reason) to be less complex, so the chance of earning your credits in the ITIL V2 range of training is bigger(except for Service Manager, because I think the chance of succees on ITIL V3 intermediates is far bigger than passing your service manager V2).

Had OGC and APMG set up a less complex certification scheme and especially a more reduced scopy for the Foundation level, then I think this discussion would not have existed. ITIL V2 certifications would have "died" a natural way. See also my "open letter"in my blog here on the skeptic.

For consultancy purposes I see no need to chose between V2 and V3 or even to state that you're using ITIL. ITIL is no more that a very populair "cook book" for enhancing a company's ITSM approach. I could very well imagine a company having set up basic processes like incident, change, config, problem and SLM and now looking for a more strategic approach and a more consistent quality. They can apply (parts) of what is written in the V3 books of Strategy and CSI (or basically any good management book on strategy an quality!!!) without changing their existing processes to a version 3 simply because there is no benefit in changing these processes.

I wish OGC and its faithful followers all the best with V3. I think it will only increase my business as more and more clients look to adopt ITSM with as little mention of ITIL as possible. Perhaps MOF will gain some ground or CobiT will see a chance to expand its presence. I'm for what is best for me which happens to mirror what is best for my paying customers. If I was an ITIL Trainer or ITIL Consultant (as opposed to ITSM Consultant), I'd join the merry bandwagon that is firmly hitched to the rump of ITSMF and the OGC.

Castle ITIL is surrounded by a sea ........................ of ingorance. It is still hard to believe for them that not everyone in the world understands English. They even think everyone in the world understand "APMG_MULTIPLE_POiNT_CHOICE_ENGLISH".

Anyway for the publications: Thanks to Amazon and especially the illegal copies circulating on internet, ITIL V2 publications will never die!

Just wanted to add some feedback on this. I noticed on the OGC site the following info:

"The survey had over 1300 responses, with a broad range of organisations providing a cross-representation of views from the community. There are some clear messages in the survey report:

English versions of products need to be in the market to the end.
Overall, less than 8% suggested version2 qualifications need to be available for more than 2 years (from the date of the survey)."

I have to say the 8% figure listed for my money is extremely low! Based on what I continue to see on my daily stroll in the ITIL blogs, as well as the impression I hear and read from IT management sources, vendors, etc., there is really no rush or requirement to move to V3 and a lot of organizations which are embarking on the ITIL path are more than happy with V2. With the global economic downturn, organizations have had to take a hard look at a number of key initiatives and the money it costs to implement and staff key best practices. Incident Management, Problem Management and Change Management (V2) may be as far as they are willing to invest in and implement. V3 is viewed as being over the top in some areas for a lot of organizations. ROI is at the heart of it and if V2 best practices are good enough, especially in the new economic reality facing organizations, then that's where they'll stay.